2: When the Music Stopped: The Big Band Era Remembered, Bernie Woods

It took me more than a year to finish this waste of paper.

Woods tells three kinds of anecdotes:
1) those in which jazz musicians or managers receive oral sex
2) those in which somebody does something very rude or annoying
3) those in which absolutely nothing of interest happens

Those in category 1 make Woods sound like a misogynist, or, in some cases, like a jealous male chauvinist.

Those in category 2 are of two kinds: the ones in which Woods' excellent intentions are stymied by some rude jerk, and those in which he or his wife (!) take offense at something minor, over-react, and do something rude or dumb, causing the situation to blow up.

Those in category 3 appear to be inserted solely to drop the name of someone famous Woods has met, seen in the distance, or possibly just heard of.

It's truly horrid. Woods paints himself as the biggest kind of jerk. Reading this book is like watching a train wreck in slow motion: you can't turn away, and you can't believe it keeps going, and going, and going. "Surely he'll realize what he's writing and stop the madness?"

The final chapter takes a swing at modern youth and their horrible music. Woods' examples of the modern horror that is music: Madonna, Michael and LaToya Jackson, and...Blind Melon. (Yes, I don't know either. Perhaps some airline magazine had an article on them.) In any case, the retarded youths who find this noise appealing apparently dance "the hippety hop". So that's nice. Bunnies everywhere.

Verdict: avoid.